Winter Sleep
Nov 28, 2014 11:00:01 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2014 11:00:01 GMT -5
The legendary bb took us to see Winter Sleep at the BFI recently, and I was very impressed. I commend it to everyone reading 'The Third'! In the opening scene of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's latest masterpiece, a tenant’s son smashes the window of the hero’s jeep with a stone. Later a wild horse is captured; a wad of money meets a spectacular fate; four men, near the close, get drunk ...That’s about it. Yet how do you define “action”? Mainly what happens is the slow dismantling of Aydin’s pride, and reshaping of his life, across small spaces and vast omni-minutes of conversation. Writing in the FT, Nigel Andrews explains Nuri Bilge Ceylan's 'Winter Sleep' thus:
Being in this cave hotel (Othello) glowing with antique light and filamented with love and hate is like being stuck in a lightbulb before it blows. Or like being in Plato’s cave unsure if you’re an original or a shadow-replica. Superbly scripted by Ceylan and his wife and writing partner Ebru, this film about self-deception versus truth – truth to oneself and about oneself – makes talk seem action. Apocalypse hovers in the story’s eaves. Everyone is goaded mentally to remould his/her existence. After three hours in which “nothing happens”, we realise everything from the ground upward has happened. We feel the aftershocks, subtle yet seismic, long after we leave the epicentre/auditorium, at least according to Nigel Andrews.
FT - Winter Sleep – film review
Absolutely brilliant!
" ... Aydin’s name means “artist” in Turkish. The hotelier and ex-actor (magisterially played by Haluk Bilginer) has grand ideas of his contribution to culture, in partial retirement, as an essayist for a local magazine. He’s a small-time philosopher digging for wisdom’s redemption. But his divorce-bruised sister (Demet Akbag), in a long low-lit scene, starts to peck his amour-propre to pieces. Later Aydin gets his misogynistic payback by humbling his wife (Melissa Sözen) and ridiculing her charity works. But even that cruelty does not rest. It spreads a new, slow illumination, both merciful and merciless."
Being in this cave hotel (Othello) glowing with antique light and filamented with love and hate is like being stuck in a lightbulb before it blows. Or like being in Plato’s cave unsure if you’re an original or a shadow-replica. Superbly scripted by Ceylan and his wife and writing partner Ebru, this film about self-deception versus truth – truth to oneself and about oneself – makes talk seem action. Apocalypse hovers in the story’s eaves. Everyone is goaded mentally to remould his/her existence. After three hours in which “nothing happens”, we realise everything from the ground upward has happened. We feel the aftershocks, subtle yet seismic, long after we leave the epicentre/auditorium, at least according to Nigel Andrews.
FT - Winter Sleep – film review
Absolutely brilliant!